Use your Computer as a Production Machine (2):

ORGANIZE YOUR HARDDISK

If you want to be a "professional" computer user, you have to do (at least) regular backups. But in order to do that efficiently, your computer's harddisk has to be organized first.

It's just not reasonable to take indiscriminately copies of all the files on your harddisk. The reasons are manifold (see first article of this series). So, you have to do it selectively. You can do it efficiently by lumping all those files to be backup-ed in a common directory. (For simplicity, I called it 'Own'.) Thus all you have to do - once you have prepared a batch program for backup - is activating that program. Then everything else will be done automatically: The files of directory 'Own' and all its sub-directories are copied to the backup medium.

Ok, that's the core idea. However, there are two obstacles to that:

1. Most of the modern applications can be re-directed to take their input files not from the place they were installed at but from some other place. Usually there is any option determining where to take it from (or where to store it to, if it's an output file). For a system-specific application that came as part of the system installation it's usually not an option within that application but any system setting.
   
   Agreed, that option or system setting is not so easy to find sometimes -but except for rather old applications there will be anything like that.
   
   Only in rare cases, or if you just can't find that option or system setting, you just have to live without that. There is a solution even to that. Though it will take a bit more coding effort. Details to that in the forthcoming fourth part of this series ("Batch program ... ").



2. Apart from backup, there are many cases for which the initial directory structure is useful or even required. So, this structure should be mimicked by the sub-directories of 'Own'. More on that in the following.
   
   The first level of sub-directories under directory 'Own' comprises all those applications you are working with on a regular (or even daily) base. So, the directory structure looks like this:
   
   

   Own    |   +-- Application 1    |   +-- Application 2    |  etc.

   
   Some applications presuppose a more sophisticated directory structure -e.g. there is a sub-directory 'Stationery' to advanced email applications, or a graphic application might expect a sub-directory 'Patterns', etc.
   
   You can easily do them that favor, like the following:
   
   

   Own    |   +-- Application 1    |         |    |        +- Stationery    |        +- Patterns    |   +-- Application 2    |         |    |        +-    |        +-    |  etc.

   
   Similarly, you can make the structure of sub-directories reflect the projects you are working on, even if several applications are involved:
   
   

   Own    |   +-- Application 1    |         |    |        +- Project 1    |        +- Project 2    |   +-- Application 2    |         |    |        +- Project 1    |        +- Project 2    |  etc.

   Don't be confused by the fact that the executables of 'Application 1', 'Application 2', etc. are still stored in another part of the harddisk. For backup, only the input and output files of the applications are needed. It would simply be a waste of a good deal of your backup medium if also the executables would be copied. (And in fact those copies would not even help you at all if your computer's software needs to be restored.)

   By that kind of harddisk organization it will be easy to backup only selected files. Before that, however, let's consider what kind of backup strategy should be applied: distinction of DAILY, WEEKLY and LONG-TERM backup turned out to be useful for me. More about that in the next article of this series.